la-bel [ley-buh
l] noun
l] noun
a short word or phrase descriptive of a person, group, intellectual
movement, etc.
As I begin my journey
into the blogosphere I am reluctant to jump into the deep end of the pool but I
am finding that this subject is at the forefront of all we do while leading and
living a normal life.
While labels are used on
a daily basis to categorize every human being we come in contact they are
nothing more than a way to help us compare ourselves to them and thus prove
ones superiority. And while the very
basic of labels are used in grade school they are nonetheless apparent, i.e.
tall/short, skinny/chubby, smart/stupid.
The more advanced labels are either taught at home or picked up from
many different outside sources. Sitting
around the dinner table as a family you can remember when your father would
talk about someone in such a way that the other person was Jewish, Republican
or worse yet a homosexual. While as a
child these labels meant nothing, nonetheless the labeling process had
begun. Going off to college or beginning
a career you could begin to sense the groups your parents spoke about around
the table. You began to create subsets
in your mind and start fitting people you came in contact with into one of
those subsets. As you read this you are
surely looking back into all of those times.
From religious preferences to sexual orientation they continue to
manifest themselves as we get older and broaden the scope of our experiences. Gay/straight, Jewish/Baptist, White/Black,
Republican/Democrat they have all meant one thing or another to someone. This is extremely unfortunate as we hone our
daily living skills as best we can and to see past those labels that have
caused so much harm. If the human race
were more tolerant, this would not be such the problem it is today. If we could see people for who they are and
not try so hard to label them our interactions could be so much more
productive. Think of practicing more
tolerance and less hatred for people.
Open up your mind and delete the subset labels to truly become a better
person. Open-minded people are often
happier and better adjusted because they practice such tolerance for
everyone. I am a white Republican male
yet I am sometimes automatically labeled as intolerant because of the Republican
parties’ principles which I do not practice.
Sure I would love to see smaller government
and fewer taxes, but that is not what defines me. I have never pretended to know the anguish of
the black slave or living my life as a gay man.
Unless you have walked in their shoes you have nothing to comment on and
frankly you have no right to. If your
mind was clear of hate and bigotry than you would be more accepting of the pain
and suffering certain groups have had to endure. Stop pretending you know all about labels and
the harm they caused if you have not been on the receiving end of a beating
because you are black or because one man chose to love another man or ones
faith is different than yours. These behaviors all started at the dinner table.
As a society we must begin to look
deeper within ourselves and clean up our own house prior to looking in someone else’s
windows. For not only the sake of today’s
society, but for the future of our children.
That’s all I have to say
about that.
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